Page 21 of HeartTorn (WarBride #2)

ILSEVEL

Taar is silent as we leave the domed chamber and step back into the passage. He takes my hand again, and though I don’t want even that small point of contact between our palms, I can’t very well shake him off. I could never navigate the winding ways of this temple on my own, so I grit my teeth and let him lead me.

All around ilsevel blossoms clinging to the walls flicker with their strange inner light-song. I had ceased to hear them when we stood in the presence of that priest, for his harsh voice, speaking in a rush of language I couldn’t begin to comprehend, drowned out all other sound. Now the song returns, a delicate hum on the edge of awareness. It’s strange—I’ve never heard anything quite like it, made without either voice or soul. Something about it feels familiar, but I don’t know why. It’s as though part of me has always known this song should exist, if only I could find it. As though I’ve believed in and sought after it all my life, without knowing what I sought.

We emerge suddenly through the open temple door, back out into the crisp air of deepening evening. Elydark gleams in the moonlight. He munches contentedly, and when he raises his head at the sight of us, petals scatter from his muzzle. A greeting hums along the soul-thread connecting Taar and Elydark. Taar releases my hand, leaving me oddly bereft as he goes to his steed. They lean their heads close together, sharing words in their private language.

I rub my hands, eager to rub away the warmth of Taar’s fingers. The temple doorway feels like an open maw behind me, and I step away from it, shivering. There was something in the way that old priest had looked at me, a latent hatred barely suppressed. I shouldn’t be surprised—it was the same look Taar’s people gave me the night of our ill-fated wedding. Am I really to spend the next month surrounded by those who would like to see me dead?

Taar and his unicorn are still talking. Though I cannot hear what they say, Elydark’s low-hung head and Taar’s bowed shoulders are telling enough. With a sigh I turn away from them. There’s a broad, flat rock not far from my current position, surrounded by a tangle of ilsevel blossoms. I step over to it and take a seat, suddenly tired. I’m perched not far from the edge of a ravine overlooking a hushed valley. Down below stand hundreds of tent-like structures, bathed in gentle moonlight.

“The Hidden City,” I whisper. Every time Taar mentioned this place, I had pictured something like the great ruins we’d passed when crossing Cruor, all those magnificent structures, those towers and bridges and tall, forbidding walls. This is nothing like what I expected. The city is arranged in a carefully-plotted circular formation. The tents themselves are, for the most part, circular as well, but with side chambers jutting out from the primary circle. Even from this distance, many of them look quite large and imposing. Nonetheless they don’t compare to the magnificent architecture I’d glimpsed in passing while riding Elydark across the stricken land.

How far have the people of Licorna fallen? I wonder vaguely as I sit here, chin cupped in my hands. The tragedy of Taar’s tale strikes me all over again. Once a great power among the worlds of Eledria, now a remnant people, living rough in this harsh country . . . no wonder the Licornyn folk hate my kind so viciously.

Footsteps sound behind me. I glimpse Taar in my peripheral vision moments before he draws alongside the stone on which I sit. He stands there, silent. Then he takes a seat, close enough that I feel the warmth radiating from his skin. I hate the draw I feel toward him, the urge to lean close and feel the solidness of his arm. Instead I sit up straight, pulling my cloak tight around me, and refuse to look at him. Was he lying when he said he wouldn’t kill me? I’m almost certain that’s what the priest suggested—something in Gantarith’s tone sounded bloodthirsty to me. Maybe Taar spoke all those gentle assurances just to keep me from panicking or doing anything rash, but secretly he intends to slit my throat while I sleep.

“I cannot hide you for a month.”

His voice is sudden after the long silence. I shoot him a swift sideways glance. There’s a hardness to his features, to the set of his jaw. Wind whips through his long, black hair, trailing strands across his eyes, which remain fixed on the city below us.

“Hide me?” I say at last, echoing his words.

“I considered taking you back into the wilds,” he says. “I thought we might stay there until silmael, away from any prying eyes.” He shakes his head. “But we can’t. My people need me. I am luinar , and I have responsibilities.” He draws a long breath and grimaces, as though the words he’s about to say taste bitter on his tongue. “So we will meet with the elders tomorrow morning. I must ask their permission for you to stay until the night of the new moon.”

I take this in without comment. It’s not as though I have any say in the matter. Strange that these elders, whoever they are, wield so much power over their king. I cannot imagine my own father submitting to any authority. But then I would hardly compare my father to Taar in any respect—they are very different men and, presumably, very different kings.

Taar suddenly runs both hands down his face. He looks tired. It might be the first time since the virulium poison laid him low that I’ve seen him as anything other than a figure of certainty and strength. He does not remain like so for long, however, but rises and says in a firm voice, “Come. We cannot stay here all night.”

Without a murmur I leave my stone seat behind and follow him back to where Elydark waits, grazing quietly in a patch of ilsevel blossoms. Apparently, though Taar claimed a single ilsevel could sustain a unicorn for upwards of a month, that doesn’t stop them from enjoying a hearty meal when given opportunity. He puts his ears back when Taar assists me back into the saddle. I don’t blame him; the last thing in all the worlds I want is to ride on tonight, or ever again for that matter. But I hold my tongue.

Taar mounts behind me and nudges Elydark with his heels. The unicorn ambles into motion, picking out a path down from the temple mount toward the tent city below.

Taar does not try to speak, for which I am grateful. Though questions multiply inside my head, I tamp them down firmly. In the silence, I find myself once again hearing the delicate hum of the ilsevel blossoms, which grow down this hillside in trailing vines. I can’t help the odd sense that they are following me, somehow. That they don’t want me to leave them, that they’re inviting me to stay and listen and understand.

We come to the bottom of the incline and the level ground of the valley bowl. Here a forest separates us from the city, the trees so densely grown, the branches so intertwined, they might as well be a wall of stone. But Elydark continues without pause, finding a nearly invisible trail and trotting along it at a brisk clip. Beneath the canopy of this forest, I am practically blind, for no moonlight can penetrate here. Thus I don’t see the figure who steps out in front of us on the path and only become aware of him when a deep voice calls out roughly: “Tor eilamar!”

I let out a little squeak of surprise and jolt back against the broad chest behind me. Elydark comes to a halt, tossing his head, but Taar’s voice is level when he answers: “Velethuil, Halamar.” It is the Licornyn greeting—that much I recognize. But the string of words which follows I do not know.

A flash of light erupts in the darkness. I throw up my hands to shield my eyes. It’s like a star suddenly flaring into existence right here in the forest before me, so brilliant and white and dancing with other nameless colors just on the edge of perception. For a moment it’s too much, but when my eyes adjust to that initial flare, I peer between my fingers.

A tall figure stands in the path, his legs widespread, his shoulders like a wall. He holds a long, teardrop-shaped lantern out at the extent of his arm. It is this which casts the strange light, but it does not contain flame—instead, to my surprise, I see a swirl of liquid contained behind glass, giving off that pulsing luminousness. It’s so odd, at first I cannot tear my gaze away from it to further study the man who carries it. However, as he and Taar continue talking over one another in eager Licornyn tongue, I take time to study him.

He is built like a warrior: strong, well-muscled. His face is older than Taar’s and not quite handsome, but striking in its way, with a prominent nose and a wide jaw. His hair is black and braided tightly at the temples before falling well past his shoulders. In typical Licornyn fashion, his torso is bare despite the crisp chill in the air, but he wears a wide belt and furred trousers tucked into tall boots.

All these details flash before my eyes, but they seem hardly to matter. There’s something else which strikes me much more prominently, something . . . not quite right. I’m not sure how to describe it. Crippled is the word which comes to mind, though I see no sign of warping or injury in his strong limbs.

Suddenly I catch it: the faintest whisper of song. Broken song, a melody made dissonant and wrong. It’s not unlike the song I heard from the hearttorn unicorns. From Nyathri. But it’s so faint, almost imperceptible. Could I be imagining it?

His gaze fastens on me. He holds up his teardrop-shaped lantern to better illuminate my face. A curse bursts from his lips, and he takes a step back, his free hand going for the sword at his belt. Hastily Taar dismounts and goes toward him, hands open. The man looks at Taar, shaking his head in confusion. Their voices rise and fall, and all the while, the man keeps sending me looks that change from anger to disbelief. At one point he throws back his head and utters a loud bark of a laugh. That makes my blood boil. I knot my hands in Elydark’s mane, biting back the words which spring to my tongue.

Finally the man nods, seeming to agree to something. With a last distrustful glance my way, he hands his lantern to Taar, turns, and makes his way up the path through the dark forest. “Who was that?” I demand the moment the shadows swallow him from sight.

Taar turns back to me, holding up the strange lantern. “Halamar,” he says. “An old friend and battle companion.”

“He seemed . . . less than pleased to see me.”

A rueful expression flashes across Taar’s face. He returns to Elydark’s side. The lantern swings on the end of its chain, casting his shadow in flashing configurations behind him. “If Halamar’s reaction is the worst we receive, we will be gods-blessed for sure.” He stops and touches Elydark’s shoulder with his free hand and doesn’t meet my eye. “He’s gone to find my sister. She will help us tonight.”

“Help us how?”

“We must prepare you to meet the elders. Tassa will inform them of our arrival and forewarn them as to the nature of the meeting which will take place. She will also assist you in making yourself ready in the morning, appropriate garments and so forth.”

We lapse back into silence. I can’t say I’m pleased at the prospect of meeting Taar’s sister. It feels too personal. Not to mention she’s bound to hate me as much as any other Licornyn I’ve met.

I pull myself a little straighter in the saddle, fighting the exhaustion permeating my limbs. Taar stands close to Elydark’s head, and I feel the hum of their shared communion. If I listened more closely, I think I could pick up a few words here and there, but I’m too tired to try. Instead I let my awareness sink deeper, back into that space which hears the gentle song of the ilsevel blossoms. There aren’t as many down here in the valley, but I spy a few stray vines climbing tree trunks, the hearts of small buds glowing faintly in the gloom. Those buds begin to unfurl when I look at them, as though eager to greet me. I look away quickly.

I don’t know how long we wait. Long enough that I begin to wonder if this Halamar forgot about us entirely, and we’re doomed to spend a cold night under these trees. My eyelids are leaden, and my head nods. I feel I could slip from this saddle, lie down right beside Elydark’s massive hooves, and sleep like the dead for a week or more.

Before I can quite resolve to do just that, however, a woman’s voice calls out in the darkness: “Taar?”

Suddenly I’m awake. Anxiety spikes through my veins. Two figures step into the glow of Taar’s upraised lantern—Halamar and, close at his heels, a tall, strikingly beautiful woman. She is slender to the point of thinness, but her bare arms boast defined muscles that bespeak a life of hard labor. Her black hair is bound on top of her head in fat coils held in place by glinting silver threads, and large earrings of pounded silver hang from her ears nearly to her shoulders. Her features are strong and ideally proportioned, her black eyes cat-shaped above severe cheekbones. She couldn’t be mistaken for anyone but Taar’s sister.

But the thing which catches my attention most forcefully at the sight of both her and Halamar is that same thread of song I’d picked up from him at first glance. That strange, broken melody—only this time it’s much more pronounced. And it seems to flow between the two of them.

Halamar’s face has lost all sharpness of expression, his features assuming a mask of calm. Quite a contrast to the severity in the woman’s eyes. She—Tassa presumably—stops dead a few paces from Taar. Her mouth drops open in surprise as her gaze travels from him to me. I’m immediately certain that, were we to have met alone in this place, she would have torn into me tooth-and-nail, like a wildcat. As it is the presence of the other two holds her fury in check. But only just.

After a space of breaths during which I count seven thudding heartbeats in my throat, the woman wrenches her gaze from me and rounds on her brother. When she speaks, her voice is cold, low, and venomous. Taar tries to interrupt, but she takes an aggressive step forward, finger pointing at his face, and a stream of vicious words pours forth. Taar waits until she’s through, then gently takes his sister’s pointing finger in hand and moves it to one side.

“Tassa,” he says, “allow me to introduce my warbride. This is Ilsevel. Ilsevel”—he looks at me over his shoulder—“it is my pleasure to present to you Talanashta Estathanei, my sister.”

Tassa’s gaze doesn’t move from her brother’s face. She takes a step back and growls something that sounds like an expletive.

Up until now I’ve held my tongue, but this woman’s tone sets my teeth on edge. “See here,” I snap, leaning forward in the saddle, determined to catch her eye, “it’s not as though I like this situation any more than the rest of you. It wasn’t my choice to be married off to this hulking lunk of a brother of yours. Did I ask him to throw me in a prison cart and haul me away to captivity? Did I ask him to buy me and drag me away to this gods-forsaken place?”

The woman stares up at me. Behind her, Halamar chuckles softly, though his face remains a mask. Tassa shoots him a glare, and he swallows and resumes his silence. She looks up at me again, her eyes penetrating. When she opens her mouth, I brace myself, prepared for attack.

“He is a hulking lunk.” She pronounces the words in my language with only a trace of an accent. “Whatever else you may be, I’ll credit you for that insight at least.” She presses her lips into a hard line, her gaze running over me in the pale light of that lantern. She glances at her brother again, eyes narrowing, and says something in Licornyn. He responds in a low murmur, and she sighs.

Turning to me once more, she crosses her arms and shakes her head so that her large, silver earrings swing back and forth over her shoulders. “Very well, human,” she says with a little huff through her lips. “Tomorrow I will help you prepare to meet the elders. Perhaps my lunkish brother will be able to convince them to spare your life. Perhaps not. We shall let the gods decide.”

“Thank you,” I answer stiffly, though not entirely convinced thanks is appropriate.

She tips an eyebrow my way, then fixes Taar with another stern glare before turning to Halamar. She says a few swift words to him, which he acknowledges with a solemn nod. Once more, the air between them crackles with a faint echo of broken song, distant yet unmistakable. I shake my head slightly but cannot clear the sound from my ears. It continues singing, an eerie dissonance, until Tassa turns from Halamar and hastens up the path toward the city.

Halamar turns to Taar, speaking softly. The initial surprise and shock with which he greeted his king has faded, leaving behind the impression of a man not easily provoked to strong emotion. He and Taar exchange a few words, at the end of which Taar clasps his forearm warmly. “Normaer,” he says, a word of gratitude I’ve heard him speak before. Then he turns to me. “Halamar has offered us the use of his dakath for the night. It is located outside the city limits. We should not be disturbed.”

I catch Halamar’s eye. “Normaer,” I say experimentally. His eyes brighten with surprise, and something like a smile pulls at the corner of his mouth.

Taar knows the way to Halamar’s dakath , so we part with the warrior and branch off from the primary road through the forest into a small side path I certainly could not have found on my own. Taar leads the way, carrying the teardrop lantern. I remain on Elydark’s back, rather cold without Taar’s presence behind me. I watch his shadowy form, illuminated by that pale light.

“That man,” I say after a little while. “Halamar . . . is he hearttorn?”

Taar stops, surprised, and looks back at me. “What makes you ask that?”

“Is he?” I persist.

His frown looks severe in the pale lantern glow. “His licorneir, Liossark, was killed at the battle of Agandaur Fields, three years ago.”

I turn this information over in my mind. “Was that when he broke off his relationship with your sister?”

Taar’s eyes widen. “How could you possibly know about that?”

I shrug. “There was a song between them. Disharmony. It reminded me of the hearttorn unicorns by the river, and . . . and Nyathri.”

Taar studies me for some moments, multiple expressions passing through his eyes in quick succession. “Halamar and my sister were promised to wed,” he says finally. “But when he became velrhoar, he told her he could not go through with it. He felt he was only half a man following Liossark’s death. He told her she deserved more.”

With those words, he faces forward and leads us on through the trees. Elydark follows, head low, his great horn pointed at the ground. I think back on those stray interactions glimpsed between Tassa and Halamar. Something tells me she has not forgiven him for ending their bond. She is angry but, unless I misunderstood the broken song between them, she loves him still.

We come to a clearing near a bubbling stream. A small dakath tent stands pale in the moonlight. Nothing like the great tents of the city I’d seen from the temple mount, this one reminds me much more of those small tents I’d glimpsed in the Licornyn encampment the night of my ill-fated wedding. There’s not a great deal of room inside for one person, much less two.

“You will find plenty of blankets and leokas skins inside,” Taar says. “Make yourself comfortable.”

I dismount, painfully aware of the similarity to last night, when I’d stood in the rain outside the shepherd’s dugout and refused to shelter without him. Tonight, however, I won’t insist on sharing. He can sleep out here on the hard ground and freeze for all I care. Without a word, I step toward the dakath.

“Wait.”

My heart leaps. A sudden rush of blood pulses through my veins. I cannot look at him, but every part of me is so aware of him—of his size, his warmth, his power. The magnificent aura of his soul, like a song in and of itself. Around my wrist the velra tightens. I want to curse it and the terrible, irresistible draw I feel toward this man to whom I am still so damnably bound.

“Take this,” Taar says, his voice husky. He holds out the teardrop-shaped lantern. “It will be dark inside.”

Breath catches in my throat. I fear if I let it out, I’ll betray myself in some foolish way. Keeping my eyes firmly in front, I nod once, reach out and take the lantern. My fingertips brush against his, and a burst of electricity races up my arm to whorl in my breast.

Taar hastily steps back, beyond the circle of lantern light. He clears his throat. “Rest well tonight, Ilsevel.”

I open my mouth. But if I speak it won’t be to bid goodnight. The words crowding my tongue are far too perilous.

Biting my lip, I nod once, push back the dakath tent flap, and carry the lantern into the shadows inside.